i'll have to read through this entire thread when i get some extra time. for now, the pictures did it for me.

Hi, been away and then found the forum off line for a few days. I just found your kind words, glad you found it interesting. There are some amazing installs on this forum that have a much higher standard of finish than mine, however for a system that runs and feels like a fully integrated HI END OEM system then this is pretty dam close.

Once again for anyone interested, I finally finished the Phone software and I have to say it’s really nice. Fully embedded and displayed on my 8” screen with the APP designed specifically for small touch screen operation.

New top level Phone screen.

Phone Answer options:
1. Auto answer only for entries in the Phone book.
2. Optional Voice announcement of the Phone Book caller Name on connect.
3. Auto answers all call.
4. Both enabled with X number of rings before answering a Non Phonebook call.
5. Manual answer and Hang up with a touch of the feDrive encoder.
6. Auto Mute and Pause of Media on phone ring or when dialling a number.
7. Auto switching to the Phone app on an incoming call.
8. Auto resume and un-mute of media at disconnect with return to previous FE menu.

I received a nice PM from mos33y which has a few interesting questions that may be interest to others using the M4 and Ultimate DAB-FM. I was granted permission to post the PM in my worklog so here it is.

Originally Posted by mos33y

Hi Mickz,

I wasent sure whether you would be ok with me asking you questions and posting in your worklog, so I decided to PM you, but please feel free in paste this in your forum if you see fit.
I am also a great fan of your work. Coincidentally (or not ;-)), I also have the ultimate dab radio, m4 ATX PSU, as well as the 8inch cartft screen.

Questions regarding dab module:
1. A. DAB Bench testing: I am having reception issues with the dab when I have it run from my car pc (zotac 9400) powered by the M4, using a random wire as aerial (just to test), but when I connect the dab to home pc, connected to the same random wire, I get a signal error of less than 5 (both carpc and home pc described are on the same bench). Signal error whilst connected to carpc is 95-100% ie dab stations become 'No service available'.
I think this may be caused by the bad earthing of the dab module, as you described earlier. So the question is: Besides the short thick green wire soldered to your dab chip and then to pc chassis, as well as earthing your dab, pc case and M4 to a common ground, have you made any other mods to the dab module?

1.B. On a less critical note regarding dab: Does your custom FE open and then close your dab usb com port every time your in 'dab mode'? or does your FE send a 'standby' signal to the dab module when you either go into hibernate or simply change modes on your FE to eg play movies? I have found that leaving my FE (centrafuse in this case) in dab mode and restarting/hibernating my system, I get sound from the dab module, but no info is visoble on the plugin and plugin buttons do not respond. I am thinking the port is not initialized properly. When I put the dab in'standby' before hibernating, all is fine when pc boots back up again. Just wondering how you have over come this issue.

2. Regarding the Cartft screen: I have notices in one of your videos that when you turn on ignition, and your headlights are turned on, your screen automatically dims and vice versa when lights go off. How did you achieve this?

I am sorry about the long winded question. Love your work mate!
Please keep on inspiring me :-)
2.

ANSWER: 1

Again thanks for the kind words on my project.

That (VERY SHORT THICK) earth Lead coming from the tin Metal shield covering the DAB-FM module to chassis ground is necessary to help remove both Audio noise and signal degradation from digital Electronic noise (M4 and PC). It is not correctly grounded with that DAB-FM modules design.

The problem you are having with the signal is compounded by the wire aerial (I know it’s only for a test – I did exactly the same when starting to test the unit) There is so much RF from most SMPS (switch mode power supplies) that they radiate and block the frontends of FM, DAB, and GPS module. A point of note is that small reversing cameras that increasingly have a tiny SMPS inside will completely kill DAB reception.

One very important construction point that I haven’t mentioned is the fact that I use chassis mounted SMA sockets between the various aerials and the receivers mounted inside the CAR PC case. If you run an aerial lead in through a hole in the case, RF interference gets coupled back into the DAB module along the outside of the coax aerial cable. By taking it in via a chassis mount socket you effectively ground this noise to chassis and not via the DAB aerial socket/ receiver frontend to ground.

You may notices very early on in the build, I discovered the only way to truly rid the system of RF interference from the M4 was to place it in a RF shielded case. (Case made of Copper clad PCB or aluminum) a die cast aluminium box is ideal. Every lead is then connected via a 1000pf feed through capacitor. It gets expensive to do but I had the parts lying around.

If you get the PC, PSU, receiver and other components on a common aluminium case with very heavy ground connections between the AMP and the PC, it can go a long way to helping with interference without going to that trouble I went to with the M4.

If you look at my PC case, when that lid is lifted it causes one of the GPS receivers to lose satellites in weak reception locations.

A2:
I found the only way to make the PC “reliably” come out of both Sleep and Hibernate was to close the DAB-FM module port. In my FE I simply log the state the DAB module was at and reinitialize it to the same state, station etc on resume from sleep, hibernate or shutdown.

I included some code in my Radio software to kill and restart the radio if was left in that silly playing audio state for some reason and not responding to commands. I must revisit that someday but its working fine at the moment. Just makes radio turn-on logic a bit slower. I also close the port when the radio is switched off (other media playing).

2A:

The screen brightness is controlled via a PWM signal that went to the OEM DECK for back lighting of the player and HVAC controls. Most cars after 2000 have a PWM signal to control DASH light brightness and interior button back lighting.

That signal goes to a pin on my Vehicle interface Micro and is monitored by the FE to control the Windows API for screen brightness. I can adjust the screen brightness with the dash light control in the vehicle.

My FE has a tracking adjustment in setup to allow you to get everything to track correctly, along with a time of day override if desired.

Pleas feel free to post in my worklog anything to do with the project or questions about your own project, I'm always glad to help and learn where ever I can.

1A. So I guess the moral of the story is to earth, earth and earth some more. At the moment, my pc is in a metal case, m4 in separate aluminium default case with amp completely separate. I am thinking of putting all in the one case like your and then test. will return with results.

1B. I was under the impression FEs like CF and RR plugins automatically closed and opened the usb port of dab when not in use and system resumes? I am not a coder, so if they do not do this (and this seems to be the case), ensuring the dab module behaves correctly might be a challenge for me

2. Ok, that approach is really cool! However, a little beyond my technical ability. I do have the illum signal from my car available, but this is not variable. just +12v on or off. I will need to come back to this when my other, more important issues are resolved.

Just to clarify, my AMP is mounted separately. The most important thing is to ground the AMP and PC-PSU to the vehicle chassis. Then run at least a 4g earth cable between the AMP ground and the PC-PSU ground (case) and use HEAVY “double” shielded audio cables between the PC and the AMP.

The thing with grounding is the way it works and what it does is completely different between DC (and very low freq) and high frequency AC (RF interference).This is what a lot of forum users are failing to comprehend. That 0g cable looks big and meaty at BATT +12V (DC) but it’s like a tiny piece of thread at RF (PSU-PC-Digital noise).

BTW: There is a program available that will dim the display at night and with a small fusion brain for example you can have it dim when the lights come on.

Forgot to add, I have seen the DAB-FM module come up playing even when the PORT was closed in suspend and reopened on resume.

I finally fitted the phone module to the vehicle. It actually turned out to be a very easy job. I thought I would have trouble running the MIC lead but I had it installed in under 3 minutes. The Microphone cable runs from the top of the driver windscreen side cover, back to the trunk where the phone module is mounted underneath the rear shelf. Audio out runs to the MIC input on the Motherboard.

First big PLUS - absolutely no interference or noise is induced into the Audio paths and audio quality both ways is beautiful. However the problem of ECHO is there and is to be expected considering the caller audio is fed through the vehicle Sound system and therefore acoustically coupled back into the MIC. (EDIT: Found out later there was a slight noise with no other sound and the motor off - now fixed)

There is adjustable Echo control built into the Phone Module however it was never intended for use in such an amplified and separated environment. The cure is “I hope” the Phoenix Audio MT107A ECHO cancelling DSP unit which should be here in a few days.

In the meantime I’m just blown away by the ease of operation in having a dedicated vehicle phone module seamlessly integrated into the FE. BTW the unit resumes from Hibernates and Sleep without a problem.

Yesterday the car-pc system suffered its first hardware failure in almost 2 years. The centre console “recirculate button” for the HVAC would not work, it is connected to my Microprocessor (remote) interface. However the touch screen HVAC "software recirculate" worked perfectly and as they both talk to the main HVAC hardware interface micro by coms, it had to be the digital input for the switch (unlikely as its protected), a connection or the switch itself. It turned out to be the dam switch. Amazing, out of all the more sophisticated electronics in the system it’s a dam momentary push button switch that plays up.

After having some trouble I realized that the MIC and Speaker level (Line out) settings in the Phone are critical to getting this to work correctly. I’ve seen posts where people get echo cancellation to work well with some phones and not others, I wonder if this is the difference. There are two paths for echo in the phone, the internal duplex circuit and the amplified external Hands free circuit. With this Phone module I have complete control over both gain settings.

I have drawn a quick connection layout for anyone interested. At this stage I’m using a resistor to reduce the speaker level down to line level for the system audio out sound sample. I don’t have an easy analogue tap off point at the moment as I’m using an Optical output connection from the PC to the AMP via a DSP graphic equalizer.

The echo has been virtually eliminated on calls to other mobiles and it was particularly bad on the other mobile when it was also running hands-Free. No problems at all now.

FYI here is a screen grab of the MT107A SDK software. Clicking on the Green AMP icons brings up an adjustment menu where line/MIC levels, extra +6DB gain for the MIC and other settings can be set.